Paul Bass Photo
La Bella Vita’s current location.
A popular Wooster Street liquor store is looking to move down the block — but first needs a thumb’s up from the Board of Zoning Appeals.
The shop, La Bella Vita Wines and Liquors, has been operating at 175 Wooster for 21 years.
Proposed new location: If you trespass in a parking lot at the end of the block and hop a fence, you’ll see the back of a school.
A new owner of the building has served the store’s owners with eviction papers. The new owners, Aleko, Gazmir and Jeshar Zeneli, purchased the property in January. (The brothers operate the pizza restaurant Zeneli pizzeria e cucina napoletana at 138 Wooster St.)
La Bella Vita’s owners, Arjan and Archana Chugani, have found a new spot down the street at 214 Wooster, at the corner of Warren Street. But technically that’s closer than allowed under zoning rules for a liquor store to operate from a school. (The school in question, Metropolitcan Business Academy, isn’t actually visible from the location; you have to trespass through a private lot and climb a fence to get to it.)
So owner Arjan Chugani and his attorney, Ben Trachten, appeared before the Board of Zoning Appeals at its online monthly meeting Tuesday night to seek a special exception and a variance. Neighbors and Wooster Square Alder Ellen Cupo supported the quest as well at the hearing.
As “hardship” is required for the commissioners to have a basis to say yes, Trachten stated that there was no other available location within 500 feet. The Chugani family needs to find a spot within 500 feet of its current location to retain its permit without needing to seek renewed permission to operate as a package store.
Trachten said the distance from the new location to the public business-oriented high school is about 370 feet. That’s as the crow flies; human beings would need to take a longer route around Olive Street to get there.
Inside the shop.
“This business has no enforcement history and is beloved by the neighborhood. It is rare, in my experience, to have the support of a local elected official for an alcohol-related use. However we have the unwavering support of Alder Ellen Cupo,” Trachten stated.
Chugani spoke briefly, promising to continue an approach of catering to regular neighborhood customers rather than tourists and unknown walk-ins and “their alcohol needs.”
BZA Commissioner Alexandra Daum asked if the current store is located close to a school and if so at what distance. Would the move “improve or worsen the radius?”
Trachten didn’t have the precise distance available but said the current store is close to different school in the area, the Conte West Hills Magnet School on Chapel near Franklin.
There was no vote on the issue because the City Plan Commission must first review whether the use is in compliance with the public welfare.
When that review is complete, the application comes back to the BZA for a vote, likely at next month’s meeting.
This is a great store, and I hope that the BZA does the right thing and approves the variance.
Do we have any details on the reason for the eviction? Are the Zenelis planning to use the building to expand their business?